Musings of an Englishman living in the USA. Job hunting, writing, random thoughts and anything else that strikes my fancy.

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Monthly Archives: November 2014

A quick note by way of introduction may be required here. For quite some time now, certain members of the Richmond WriMos have been trying to persuade me to watch the CW show Supernatural. I have relented and am now embarking on watching Supernatural via the wonders of Netflix. This series of posts will simply be my first impressions, almost stream of consciousness style, presented in the form of the time elapsed in the episode and my thoughts expressed as bullet points. It’s effectively live tweeting the episodes except I don’t have to stick to 140 characters or fewer. So without further ado here’s my take on:

Season 1 Episode 22 – “Devil’s Trap”

01:44 – This is picking up immediately where the last episode left off.

02:06 – You know, Dean, tucking a gun into your waistband like that is just an easy way to get shot in the butt.

04:12 – Another new hunter – “Bobby.” Given the life expectancy of non-Winchester hunters in the show so far, I say he isn’t going to make it to the next commercial break without being creatively eviscerated.

04:55 – A trap for a demon? Foreshadowing ahoy!

05:50 – Something just killed Bobby’s dog.

05:53 – And apparently that something is Meg.

07:05 – Nice! A mini victory for the boys. Doing the elaborate ritual circle on the ceiling is a novel twist. And Dean’s “Gotcha” is filled with more glee than William McKinley High School

08:41 – Interesting, Meg isn’t entirely demonic, she’s merely a human possessed by a demon. I’m guessing demonic possession is going to be a plot point very soon. I wonder if the boys have time to exorcise the demon from Meg’s body before trying to track down Daddy?

09:25 – Clearly they do. Seems to be as a form of coercion.

11:45 – The direction on this exorcism is wonderful as is the palpable hostility between Meg and Dean. The latter’s absolute refusal to believe Daddy is dead is a hell of a character beat.

13:00 – So Meg-the-human will die from the injuries sustained when she took the express route to the ground back in Chicago? So she gets either dead or demonic as her choices. Sucks to be her.

14:05 – Great visual of the demon as a black cloud exiting Meg’s body. Even with TV-budget 2006-era CGI.

14:42 – The boys aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed when it comes to medical attention. Meg fell seven stories. She likely has spinal injuries. So the first thing our intrepid heroes do is to move her. NO! First Aid does not work that way!

16:20 – And now Meg has passed on. She is no more. She has ceased to be. She’s expired and gone to meet her maker. She’s a stiff. Bereft of life, she rests in peace. If Dean hadn’t tied her to the chair she’d be pushing up daisies. Her metabolic processes are now history. She’s off the twig. She’s kicked the bucket, shuffled off her mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible. She is an ex-Meg.

20:04 – Pretty intense argument. It kind of establishes that the brothers’s attitudes in regards to following their father’s orders have basically flipped since the pilot, that Sam is more like Daddy, right down to the death wish and that Dean’s biggest fear is having to bury his father or Sam. Plus Sam is right about keeping the Colt away from whatever demons have Daddy.

22:37 – “I got a Yorkie upstairs and he pees when he’s nervous!” – The only bit of levity in the episode so far. Feels like it was needed.

24:49 – Daddy Winchester isstill alive. I don’t expect him to stay that way by episode’s end.

25:05 – Sam brought up something I didn’t even think of. What if Daddy is possessed?

26:09 – Dude is getting possessed, so we see the black eyes of evil. What would be a nice little scare is undermined by my old friend, the closed captioning: “[Demonic Whooshing].” I guess that is an accurate transcription but it is impossible to take the word “whooshing” seriously, whatever adjective you place in front of it.

27:14 – This demon dude is beating Sam so hard that the latter’s hair is starting to lose its terribleness.

27:23 – Dean apparently didn’t stow the Colt and now they’re another bullet down. They only have two left to deal with Ol’ Yellow Eyes now.

28:33 – This is a very high sodium episode

30:16 – Interesting psychological wrinkle here. Dean’s bothered that he had no qualms about killing Meg or other dude possessed by a demon because they were going after Daddy and Sam.

30:51 – Daddy Winchester to Dean: “I’m proud of you.” Pretty sure that means Sam was right at 25:05 and Daddy is possessed.

32:17 – Dean thinks so too, cocks the Colt and points it at “Daddy.”

33:12 – Considering how bickery and antagonistic much of their dialog has been in the episode, Sam siding with Dean over “Daddy” is a real “Aww, they really do love each other.” moment. (Not in that way, you Wincestuous perverts)

38:51 – Daddy manages to subsume the demon, at least temporarily. Sam grabs the Colt, but will he be able to kill “Daddy?” My gut says no, but there’s only four minutes left in the season, so we shall see.

39:12 – Sam shoots him in the leg. Don’t know if that’ll be enough. They have one bullet left, so by rules of drama alone, I’m guessing Ol’ Yellow Eyes survived. Maybe it can’t use Daddy as a vessel anymore though? I assume it would possess one of the brothers instead.

40:17 – Sam can’t kill Daddy after all. And judging from Dean’s protestations, neither would he be able to.

40:37 – On the plus side: Daddy’s no longer possessed. On the minus side: Ol’ Yellow Eyes is still alive and out there. I don’t think Daddy will like the balance of that one.

41:30 – Damn! The semi-truck ramming the Impala made me jump. They better not ruin that beautiful car.

42:05 – Demonic truck driver. And the last shot of the season is of all three Winchesters seemingly dead and bloody within the mangled wreck of the Impala. There’s a bad moon on the rise. Or possibly a bathroom on the right. If only John Fogerty would enunciate more.

Wow! That’s a ballsy place to end your first season, especially if you don’t know if you’re getting renewed. Your protagonists are seemingly dead, the season’s Big Bad is on the loose and can be literally anybody and has servants everywhere. That’s all kinds of dark, and I can’t imagine how agonizing the wait between seasons must have been for fans watching it as it aired. I’m only going to be waiting a month while I do the National Novel Writing Month thing and even that feels way too long. Ol’ Yellow Eyes is one sadistic son of a bitch and I don’t want to leave off with him seemingly triumphant.

As for the episode itself prior to that ending, well see my glowing and gushing praise from last time.This was even better, benefiting from show creator Eric Kripke’s strongest writing yet as well as Kim Manners’ extremely strong televisual directing. The actors themselves did an impressive job with both Sam and Dean running through a whole gamut of emotions and psychological torments (something which fans of the show have told m,e that Supernatural is known for). Jeffrey Dean Morgan was clearly having fun hamming it up as possessed Daddy, too.